


i need some sleep

by toastyhyun



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24269560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastyhyun/pseuds/toastyhyun
Summary: Escaping the Lonely with Martin and boarding a train to Scotland all at once leaves Jon... so tired. Worn down to the bone, every inch of him sluggish, he longs for nothing but relaxation. The scenery outside is a blur, a lull, yet no sleep comes when he tries for it, thoughts of what's happened and what's to come much too loud to give him any peace.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92





	i need some sleep

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers up to ep 159.
> 
> i'm sure this fic has been written a million times, but i haven't read any fic and i finished the podcast like two days ago after ravenously consuming it during quarantine. with nothing left to do, i wrote this in a fit of needing some soft jonmartin. hope my characterizations are alright o|-<
> 
> comments & kudos always appreciated ♡

The hills and trees outside roll by in a blur where he watches them out the window beside him and Jon finds himself… so tired. He feels worn down to the bone, every sinew, every muscle, every inch of him heavy and sluggish. Being awake and aware feels like it takes everything in him, every blink cumbersome and every breath like there’s an entire building on his chest. His skin feels like it wraps around him like a weighted blanket, thick and sweltering and suffocating, yet when he closes his eyes, no relaxation comes.

He thinks, ever so briefly, of a statement he had read -- it’d been years ago now, and if things weren’t what they were, he’d be surprised he remembered it at all, but as it is, he doesn’t know if he could forget. Lydia Halligan, deceased at twenty-nine by heart attack, who had been haunted by the Spiral, by the Distortion -- by Michael specifically, he’s sure now. Not allowed to rest, nor to dream, taunted every waking moment of each day, for she could not escape even to a horror in sleep. He wonders if her death had been a relief to her, an escape from the weariness and the terror her exhaustion had brought her.

He wonders, if he _is_ able to die at all, if the End would show him mercy the second time. He wonders if this tiredness is a curse it’s given him for his first scorn of it.

Or instead, perhaps this is the Eye bearing down on him for what he’d done to Peter, the weight of its gaze on him now full of malice for him using it to destroy another avatar in a moment of his personal anger. 

Jon doesn’t believe he regrets that, though. That endless seascape, the crashing waves and the mist and the petrichor… the Lonely had been heavy in its own way too, hadn’t it? Is that what this is? Is it lingering? Sticking to him in a film that manifests in a pressure on every inch of him, right down to the centre of his chest, a punishment for killing one of its own?

There’s a shift beside him, a change in the pressure on his shoulder. Jon is pulled from his weary speculation by it, gaze turning from the scenery of London getting smaller as both he and the train leave it instead to the seat beside his own.

Martin has fallen asleep next to him, passed out completely on this uncomfortable train couch, and he’s slumped over sideways until his head has fallen onto Jon’s shoulder. He looks so awfully tired, too. Jon’s heart stutters in his chest, a robust _ka-thump_ against the front of his ribcage like it’s pressing back defiantly against that pressure weighing him down.

Looking at Martin now, the lines under his eyes, how pale he’s gotten, the memory of him in the Lonely returns. The image of how lost he’d looked, how absent everything Jon associated with him was, the emptiness in his eyes and their faded colour, how broken yet content he had looked, him saying that being alone in that place had felt right… no, Jon certainly doesn’t regret what he’d done to Peter at all. Not if it meant that the chances of losing Martin to the Lonely like that again were any bit slimmer. He thinks he’d take every entity’s personal wrath all at once if it meant keeping Martin away from them.

Now, in this moment, there’s no immediate threat. There’s just him, Martin, and the other people in their train compartment, oblivious to the two of them. Perhaps the Eye is watching, maybe Elias-- or Jonah, he supposes. But Jon doesn’t care.

He reaches, ever so careful, his shaking and scarred hand gentle as can be as it brushes Martin’s blond curls from his eyes, adjusts his glasses so they don’t fall where they dangle precariously on the edge of the bridge of his nose. Jon hurts down to the pit of his stomach, hurts at the thought that he almost lost this, hurts because he hasn’t and he doesn’t know if he deserves that. If he even could deserve this Martin even after all that he’s done, a Martin that seems to trust him even in his sleep. It’s enough to have saved him from the Lonely, but _should_ Martin trust him like this? Does he actually, or is he just doing it out of a sense of obligation?

As his stomach begins to turn, so viscerally uncomfortable with the thought that Martin’s trust is displaced in the depraved version of himself he’s become, Martin himself stirs. He pries open one eye, in just a squint, meeting Jon’s gaze with a blue so familiar and vivid that it almost sets him at ease. Just almost, though.

“You think so loudly,” mumbles Martin, his voice scratchy and sleep-hoarse in a way Jon hasn’t heard since he was living in the archives all those months ago. It feels like another lifetime ago. They were so young.

“Sorry,” he whispers, pulling his hands away to his own lap. He closes his eyes, willing himself to say something else, to say anything -- to tell Martin he doesn’t need to carry this on if he doesn’t want to. _I really loved you_ , he’d said. Jon needs to tell him he doesn’t have to pretend that he still does.

Before he can say anything, though, Martin yawns and lifts himself to pull up the armrest keeping the two of them apart out of the way before laying back down into Jon’s side unobstructed, folding himself closer until the twists of his hair tickle the skin of Jon’s neck.

“Relax,” he murmurs, and when Jon looks his eyes are closed again. There’s a smile just barely curling the corners of his mouth, a fond, subtle little thing that Jon wouldn’t be able see if he hadn’t become so attuned to every nuance of Martin’s mirth, his crow’s feet wrinkled deeper like he’s trying not to let his whole face show his content and failing. “You’re allowed to. We’re okay.”

And the funny thing is, Jon believes him. He’s never known Martin to lie to him. Drowsy as he is, close as they are in proximity, Jon doesn’t need the Beholding to know that. He might not be able to relax, not how Martin is, nor how _he_ used to be able to, but for Martin he can try. He can do at least that much for him.

In a moment of boldness he didn’t know he had in him, he extracts one of his hands from his lap and reaches over to find one of Martin’s. He tangles them together, his pock-marked, roughly textured fingers slotting into the spaces between Martin’s soft, unblemished ones and squeezing, just once, with only the slightest bit of pressure. Like he’s saying _I’m here. I’m with you_. 

“I know,” he replies, and he can’t help but smile when both Martin’s eyes open now to peer down at where their hands interlace, skin going pink beneath the freckles that cover his cheeks. He watches as his mouth drops into an _o_ , like disbelief, before that understated smile widens into something open and sunny, sorely familiar, achingly beautiful, the expression worming its warm and contented way into Jon’s chest, looping around his heart like a hug. It’s enough to leave him breathless.

Jon presses a kiss to the top of Martin’s head where he can reach, a barely there thing he can hide in the movement of hiding his face in the coils of his hair. He closes his eyes, breathes in the presence of the one he loves next to him, and lets that be enough.

“We’re okay,” he repeats, and it is enough. That heavy, tired weight isn’t gone, and he still won’t be able to sleep, but it’s enough to be here with Martin, safe and together. 

Maybe the Lonely still clings to them, and the Eye undoubtedly watches, and perhaps the End has cursed him to never rest, and simply having Martin back doesn’t fix all of that -- but Jon trusts in the two of them anyways. He chooses to. 

He drops his shoulder, shifts to allow Martin more room to curl closer if he should want to, settling his free hand stop where the other still lays clasped in Martin’s. “Go back to sleep,” he murmurs, fond, closer to being at peace than he’s felt in years, “I’ll wake you when we get there.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/toastyhyun) please..... i need more tma mutuals & friends


End file.
